West Side Story - 50th Anniversary Recording

Everyone knows West Side Story, even if they haven't actually seen the musical or the film. It's one of those giants of 20th Century culture that has been referenced or used in almost any context you can care to mention. From the BBC's use of America as their theme tune for the 1994 World Cup coverage to Alice Cooper's appropriation of Jet Song in a pastiche on the School's Out album, West Side Story is everywhere. It's now 50 years since Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim first released their musical, updating the Romeo and Juliet story onto the streets of New York, and this new recording is designed to celebrate that. The first question that has to be raised though is what is the purpose of this album? There's already numerous versions of West Side Story available, including the original motion picture soundtrack and the 'operatic' 1984 studio recording conducted by Bernstein and featuring Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras. The 2007 version isn't quite as star-studded as that, but with Hayley Westenra and Vittorio Grigolo as Maria and Tony there's still plenty of fresh young classical crossover vocal talent. For the UK market there's also Connie Fisher singing Somewhere, while it can't be denied that the artists involved here at least sound like they are the right kind of age for the roles they are playing, something that Te Kanawa and Carreras clearly weren't. Everyone acquits themselves well enough, while the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra provide a stirring run-through of Bernstein's classic score, but if you already own West Side Story on CD, would you bother getting this latest version? Probably not. If you're new to it though, you could do a lot worse than check it out, particularly if you are tempted because of the presence of people like Westenra, Grigolo and Fisher, because this is probably aimed at you. How long before Andrew Lloyd Webber decides to run a reality TV show to find the stars of a new West End production? Sigh...

Newton Faulkner - Hand Built By Robots

A Cornish singer-songwriter with dreadlocks and potential to be a cross between Paolo Nutini and Jack Johnson, Newton Faulkner is a very singular artist with his own quirky habits, both good and bad. His guitar-playing is the good side of these quirks, with a 'tapping' style that brings plenty of rhythm and sound from it, giving his songs a very nice bouncy warmth that fits in perfectly with his surfer bum persona. You can imagine him playing these songs by an open fire on a beach in Newquay on a hazy summer's evening (ok, it would be raining, but that probably wouldn't bother him). He's also got a very pleasant voice, quite reminiscent of American singer Duncan Sheik, with hints of Eddie Vedder at times, while songs like I Need Something and Dream Catch Me are great. His cover of Teardrop by Massive Attack is a live favourite and works quite well, though to be honest the repetition of the lyrics is more irritating without the lush production of the original. Most of all, Faulkner is a playful songwriter, and he likes to throw in little things like the Stevie Wonder burble of All I Got and a sitar in Sitar-y Thing, and this doesn't always work to his advantage. Faulkner clearly has a lot of talent, but a lot of people will check this album out on the strength of fairly straightforward single Dream Catch Me and get put off by some of the more bouncy and mischevious tracks. This may fit well with the image that he projects, but if he wants to achieve the kind of success that someone like Jack Johnson has enjoyed in the last few years, he could do with bringing a little more discipline and focusing his obvious talent to make a more cohesive and consistently enjoyable album. Hand Built By Robots is a good start, but it's much too long (with 17 tracks) and inconsistent to be a classic debut.

Gretchen Lieberum - Siren Songs

Newton Faulkner (above) included a cover of Massive Attack's Teardrop on his new album, and in a bizarre quirk of fate, Californian singer Gretchen Lieberum has done the same thing here. The difference is that Teardrop works much better on Siren Songs because her own style of music is quite similar to Massive Attack's brooding original because Lieberum specializes in jazzy trip-hop. Her third album, originally released in the States a couple of years ago, Siren Songs returns with a different track-listing for its European release, taking out some of the jazz covers that were on the original and replacing them with new versions of more contemporary hits, like Teardrop and Do You Realize by Flaming Lips. Unfortunately, the latter, recently released as a single, doesn't work quite so well as you might hope from a singer with such a smoky and sultry voice. Instead of doing the obvious thing and slowing the song down to a torch ballad, she messes about with the tempo and speeds it up just when the full impact of the lyrics are about to kick in, thus stripping them of their effect and weakening the song, which had started so promisingly. Thankfully, it's a rare blip, because Lieberum is on top form elsewhere, with influences from Beth Orton, Zero 7 and Portishead evident alongside more obvious American jazz artists like Nina Simone and Billie Holliday. Her vocals are polished and soulful, while the production is subtle and effective, making for an album that is full of atmosphere and great songs. It might have sounded out of place coming out in July, as it's hardly the most summery record you'll hear, but the gloomy weather and constant drizzle are perfect for Lieberum's Siren Songs.